Complete
by CaptainPumpkinPie
Summary: When Liesel finds out that Max died in Dachau, Death is forced to take her far earlier than he would have liked. At least Himmel Street was complete. Not Liesel/Max.


I wasn't supposed to do this.

My job was to take the souls as I found them, but when I ghosted to the ruins of the Steiner home and unearthed Bettina and Rudy Steiner, I couldn't bring myself to extract the soul struggling beneath that shock of lemon hair. I busied myself with the other Steiner children and their mother, and even then, I moved on to several more houses and carried up many more souls before I returned to Rudy's side.

Like so many others on Himmel Street, he didn't deserve this.

Unfortunately, it wasn't the nature of my profession to pity the dead, just to take them. So I took Rudy's soul in my arms and the sky was blood red. I was familiar with the color of blood, after so many years of shaking it from the spirits of fallen humans.

I met Rudy's bright eyes and straightened up, ready to deliver him to the gates, when I heard the sound of soft footsteps and sliding rubble that announced the presence of Liesel Meminger. Her hair and clothes were coated in dust. She wore it like something you've had in your closet for so many years, you forget you have it on.

Her already shell-shocked face turned to Rudy's body and I knew then that I would break one of my own rules. Gently, I set Rudy's soul down and whispered, "I'll be back."

I had guided six spirits home before I returned. I would only find out later what Liesel said to the corpse of her best friend later, when I found the black notebook titled "The Book Thief."

When I returned, Rudy watched with a small smile as Liesel touched his body's lips and took three steps over the rubble only to collapse, be it for grief, or exhaustion, I didn't know.

Rudy turned to me. "Thank you."

I said nothing, only offering my eyes. Rudy allowed me to hoist him up and the crimson sky widened and swallowed us. Blackness over came us, and soon after, a pair of golden gates branded my eyes in the dark. I lowered Rudy Steiner to stand before them.

"What now?" he asked, no fear in his voice. Whatever had happened when I'd left him, he'd come to peace with his untimely death.

I smiled in the darkness. "I can only take you this far, my boy. But whatever lies beyond is up to you."

He was confused by my words. I shook my head sadly at his blank expression and nudged him forward, to the gates. He breathed deeply and opened both with his palms. White light, the sweetest part of the journey, bathed us. Rudy took one last look at me before he dissolved through the mist and I felt, for a moment, peaceful.

But there were more souls rolling in the rubble of Molching. I couldn't waste time.

As I finished my work on Himmel, I watched Liesel from afar. The LSE unit had helped her to the middle of the street, where the debris lightened in magnitude, and she slowly regained consciousness. The last soul ― Frau Diller ― was thrown over my shoulder when I saw her pick up the black book.

That was the last I saw of Liesel Meminger, at least for four more months.

This was all because of a Jewish man named Christoph Bauer. He was imprisoned in Dachau's concentration camp with Max Vandenburg, whose soul I took in my arms just six weeks after the bombs fell in Molching.

When the Jews were liberated from the camp, Christoph mourned the loss of his good friend Max. He was a generous, hard-working, kind man. Max had saved the other men in the camp many times over. Christoph wondered for several weeks how he could make it up to the memory of Max. He might have given up, had he not seen the newspapers with their headlines proclaiming the miraculous survival of one Liesel Meminger.

Christoph recognized her from the march through Himmel Street, when she'd been whipped for contacting Max. Christoph Bauer thought that finding Liesel and telling her of Max's death would give both of them some kind of serenity in their weary souls.

He was very, very wrong.

When Christoph Bauer arrived on 8 Grande Strasse and spoke to Liesel Meminger on the still-dusted road outside the mayor's house, that was the last straw. Liesel thanked him. She went back inside. She read _The Gravedigger's Handbook _one last time. And then, she set the book on the desk in Ilsa Hermann's library and placed the mayor's shiny revolver to her head.

You should know what happened next.

I was the only one there when Liesel Meminger ended her life, as the mayor and his wife were out of the house. When I arrived, she had left her body ― which was sprawled on the ground behind the desk ― and perched on the windowsill. She met my eyes with the gaze of someone who had felt death before and embraced it.

I remained silent as I stood before her. I held out my arms, but she took my hand instead.

"I carry the children," I tried to explain, but the sad, light expression she wore convinced me that she didn't want to be carried.

So we walked side by side through the bright blue sky and infinite blackness to the golden gates. She smiled, and I could see that Liesel was one of the few individuals on the earth at any point in time that would be better off in death. The gray, blankness of her face disappeared like the dawn did each morning. She was at peace.

Then she spoke the words Rudy had, four months prior. "Thank you."

I lowered my gaze. "I do what I can."

And she hugged me. Most people say nothing to me in their eagerness to leave me, and if they do, the words are sown and reaped with grief and fear. But Liesel Meminger wrapped her skinny arms around me, kissed my cold cheek, and blended into the white light.

I imagine, in her Heaven, she is back on Himmel Street. That was where she was happiest, and Himmel Street-Heaven's entire cast of characters was there as well. I imagine her embracing Papa and Mama, and Max, and maybe giving Rudy that kiss he wanted so badly. She'd greet the neighbors and friends. And she'd tearfully tell them that it was too much for her without them.

She would be fourteen forever.

I don't blame Liesel Meminger for committing bloody suicide in the mayor's wife's library. She was born to live on Himmel Street with Hans and Rosa Hubermann, and to be best friends with Rudy, and hide Max Vandenburg in her basement. She was the last piece of Himmel. When she joined the dead in the second 1943 Himmel Street, it was complete. She was complete.


End file.
